Man sentenced in 1995 rape of teen church worker

DEDHAM (ap) — A man imprisoned in Maryland has been sentenced to 18-to-25 years for raping a teenage girl in 1995 as she worked in a Massachusetts church rectory.

Forty-three-year-old William Burton III was sentenced Thursday in Norfolk Superior Court, a day after he was convicted of aggravated rape and kidnapping. He was acquitted of attempted murder.

Prosecutors said Burton surprised the 17-year-old girl in the rectory of St. Albert’s Church in Weymouth, threw a towel over her head and dragged her to the basement, where he assaulted her.

Burton is serving a life sentence in Maryland for a similar crime. He was charged in Massachusetts after his DNA in a national database was linked to the case in Weymouth, where he once lived. He wouldn’t serve the new sentence unless he is paroled in Maryland.